#jaaster
Text
FFXIVWrite 2022 - Day 1 - Cross
Characters: Adi and Etienne
Content Warnings: Discussion of mental health and vague reference to suicidality, misogyny, nastiness between traumatized siblings, references to canon-typical violence.
Note: I am crossposting/mainly posting to my Twitter.
☙❀❧
“...You’re taking him to that barbaric fighting ring, aren’t you?”
Etienne paused scratching away at their paperwork, but they didn’t look up at Adi. They brushed their cheek with the feather from their quill. They waited for their younger brother to keep speaking and only stepped into the spotlight of silence when he said nothing more.
“...And?”
“He got hurt, the other day! Pretty seriously! And you as well! And Jaaster now, too?!”
Etienne heard the tightening of fists in leather gloves. They slowly raised their chin, looking up at their brother with a complete lack of concern that they knew he would find infuriating. That squeezing sound spoke of a violence Adi would never actually enact. They feared very little from Adi aside from his rejection. Strictly speaking, this anger was not rejection.
“...And?”
“Well, you’re the ringleader, aren’t you? So you’re the one to be cross with. What is the meaning of this foolishness?! Since when are you so barbaric? Is this Vander’s influence? Before you met him, you weren’t like this!”
Etienne tensed. Those words plucked a nerve they hadn’t realized was so exposed. Now their whole body thrummed with the vibration of such an incongruent note. They spat back their discontent.
“...So, you think a lady can’t be violent without the influence of a man? That’s rich coming from you. Does that mean, then, that you think my mild manners were all the man I was with before?”
“You are a chameleon, aren’t you? You tell everyone you started fighting to impress him.”
Etienne sucked in a breath through their teeth. “That’s not quite true. I did it... because I needed it. And I needed him too. It was... me realizing my own potential, separate from who I thought I was supposed to be. I began making myself into who I wanted to be, not who I should be. And if Vander had an influence on that, it is only because he asked me why I was so stubbornly committed to doing the right thing when the right thing made me unhappy! It’s because he cheered me on every time I improved or shined a little brighter! Isn’t it the same with you and your beau? Do you not like how he lets you indulge yourself? How he is proud of you?”
Adi replied only with the creak of his hands slowly unclenching.
“Anyroad, you came to my office to hear me defend my actions, did you not? I should think you would prefer me finding an outlet for my frustrations rather than trying to force things with you and Telesphore like I once did. As for Memnon - if he’s fighting and training with us, then he’s not elsewhere, learning worse habits from worse people, and I should think you’d prefer that to the alternative. Because he’s not going to sit in a basement and smoke moko and wait around for you while you play hero healer for the company, you know! If he wants to learn, let him learn, damn it! If he wants to get knocked down, let him do it with us, where we can help him stand back up!”
“I don’t want him getting hurt, he - he’s been hurt enough already.” Adi bowed his head. “He was so close to gone, Etienne. We almost lost him. I -- almost --”
Etienne gestured to the chair nearby with far too much flourish in their wrist. Adi sat down.
“It’s alright,” Etienne said quietly. “We’ve all lost so much, it makes sense for us to cling even harder than before. Especially when we’ve had to let go of... those that kept us steadiest.”
Etienne set their quill down, pushing back on their chair, arms crossed over their chest. “Honestly, I’m sure you’d rather rant to Milloux or Miss Vio about this. I’m sorry that it’s just me now. We were both doing a lot better when we had buffers between each other, weren’t we?”
Silence.
“...Why haven’t you told him it bothers you? Why take it out on me?”
“...I don’t want to take it away from him, even though I’m so worried. Right now, more than anything else - he needs activities, he needs friends, he needs a win, a reason to get out of the mansion. Even if I don’t approve, I know well enough that I shouldn’t isolate him for my own peace of mind. That would be even worse - an even bigger risk for him in terms of his recovery.”
“Don’t martyr yourself with things unsaid. My advice as a divorcee.”
Adi drew his knees up to him on the chair. “I think this is the sort of thing I just need to make peace with.”
“...So you came here to make peace by picking a fight with me? Darling, are you sure you don’t need a few rounds in a fighting pit?”
A snort.
“You knew damn well that you could yell at me all you like and I won’t change. To try and use me to keep your partner from fighting - to throw Jaaster, who is a grown man capable of his own decisions, who could cave your skull in with a single punch, in case you needed to be reminded - under the cart because you personally find fighting distasteful,” Etienne picked up their quill again, then set it down. They leaned forward, brow slapped against their palm. “That’s so bloody paternalistic it makes me sick. Do you think your friend and your lover don’t know any better? Why am I the one responsible for your ire?”
“Because you’re their leader now, and you’re encouraging them,” Adi said, slowly unfolding. “Are you really there as a useful training exercise or are you there to play and show off? Are you looking out for them properly?”
“What do you want from me, Adi? Because I will not apologize. Memnon is not the only one who needs this - who needs a twelvesdamned win.”
“I want you to act like a leader, not some show-off who plays games.”
“You want me to act like Milloux? What would she have done in my place, praytell?”
“She would have thanked me for my patience.”
“Thank you, Adi, for... what, precisely? Saving your lectures only for me? You would never have spoken to her this way.”
“I didn’t need to.”
“Liar. You simply respected her enough to not question her authority.”
“No. She respected me enough to always listen to my concerns.”
Etienne exhaled harshly, almost an exclamation.
“I’m trying, Adi. I am seriously trying. I’m sorry I didn’t square it away with you before I started taking everyone. I just wanted a bit of fun for all of us. I wanted to go somewhere where I could just fight alongside them without worrying about it. I know our hearts are torn in half by what’s happened, and I just... I can’t let my colors change again, I can’t just pretend to be her and do what she might’ve done. I’m through with living that way. I don’t want to be a chameleon, I just want to be me. I didn’t ask to lead the company, it just happened that way.”
“She’s the reason I stayed, you know. She and Lettie and Jaaster.”
“...Not me. I know.” Etienne took a breath through their nose: it sounded suspiciously like a sniffle.
“Now who’s being a martyr.”
☙❀❧
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
Cold
“...they looked at me like I were Ishgardian, you know.”
In other words, chilled. They looked at her as though she were a cold thing, even Jaaster did - and he was close to the same ever-amiable nature as Ayla’s.
That was a turn ago, maybe more with how inaccurate her grasping assumptions have been lately. Xiaohu was finding it earnestly difficult to record time and its passing at this point in her life, too many affairs mixed with the need to leave no paper trails. At first, she never called back to that memory. It hadn’t breached her mind one onze, not since: there was relief that they had done as they bade for once, and there was relief that she wasn’t either dead or crippled (once again). There was no time, and scant interest, in even considering how her friends had taken her in.
But she thought about it, for the first time, just suns ago.
“If you want to ignore me in the process, the decision is your’s. You already do half the time as it is.”
She’d been listening to her own roar (proving the point) more than she was exactly listening to Evilie. And, originally, that sounded like ‘Fuck you, fuck this marriage, and fuck Gregoire while we’re at it’ within that gut of her’s. Then, when they were both running in the dark of that jungle, it swapped to the acquiesce of ‘I do ignore you. I do ignore you.’
It was considered later. Lightly; a surface level kind of polish that layered over the top of something that desperately should have been ground down first. Of course, guilt has sat there in the corner of the room since. But it never bothered to clear its throat and raise its voice. It was conveniently distant, as ignorable as Evilie. She didn’t have to say hello to him.
But blood has always had a way of reaching Xiaohu like no one else could.
Only blood ever seemed to stir her.
And it stirs her now.
Here, the Observatorium.
Evilie was preoccupied, and so Xiaohu went in her place. It was a logical tactic that they’d done before and would continue to do. Naturally, it was some sort of eager bid for investment. A real flex of academic might in the usual groping for purpose that most organizations here sought. Maybe another time, when they were younger, she’d have been more fascinated. She would have placed more weight herself into the standard literature of their times. But this is now and all she can think of is—
I saved someone’s life here.
Right there, in that very spot. Give her just a tick of the bell and she could recall it as clearly as a vision walked. She is recalling it as clearly as when the experience was first forged. That sluggishness of a bleed left for almost too long, that way it caked and peeled off of him like paint where her fingers pressed against coagulation, that vacillation between his wet, tortured, breathing and smothered silence.
It wasn’t personal at all, but she can remember that sheer, exhausted, relief that flooded her when she reversed the pressure and heard his gasping; heard that quiet, quiet, whistle of air leaving his punctured cavity. And though she was aware already of a secret to be taken to three graves, she felt proud for it: I just saved your fucking life, Austrant de Durendaire.
She used to be proud about that sort of thing. By this Star, she used to be that person.
Would she have felt anything if that were now?
When did she get so cold?
(Do you remember those dreams?)
“Where is your fortitude, your strength of spirit? Are you so easily influenced by the world around you?”
That used to cut her, and it was never meant for her. It had no meaning, no association.
“You’re hurting him. He’s crying because of you.”
That made her want to cry too, so much that the raise of her handgonne made her fucking sick to her stomach.
“Vander, are you okay?”, “Did something hurt her?”, “Are we all okay? I-Is Kowa okay? Tarkhan? Esen? Jaaster?”
Where did that change? That concern? It used to be for everyone. Not just them.
I stood up for someone once.
And she, outwardly steady, stood up for them so ferociously inside of herself (could she have died there for what she did in another Star?)
“Us giving to others doesn’t take away what we give to you.”
So why has she become so flippant, so reserved, in this giving that was so available, so limiting? It came so easily to her, once. She cried for that same cruel woman she argued against just minutes after— and she cried for so long around that mouthful,
“I’m just glad she’s okay.”
Before that, she cried for four, five— maybe a whole sennight, for another woman she never said so much as ‘Hello’ to, because she knew what it was like. After that, she cried when Vander broke his leg. She cried a lot more, for everyone. She cried for Evilie, for Avenai, for Torithas, for Silvestre, for Lux, for, for, for. And she stood up for so many people.
Vander doesn’t even know how many fucking times I’ve had to stand up for him when he wasn’t there.
She used to care, so much fucking more.
I shattered my fucking arm to protect something a dead stranger loved.
And now that’s all she could think of. She used to be so much fucking worse, so mean; so cruel; so eager for just that. But she used to be much fucking better in other regards, too. She used to be stirred by something other than blood. She used to cry for them. She used to stand up for them. She used to smile for them, too.
But I notice I don’t smile anymore.
Their smiles for her have gotten so much warmer, so trusting in her permanence; her support that was once always there. Syrupy in these quiet gatherings and their quiet departures in the past two turns, but she doesn’t do what she used to. She used to search for their eyes, implore for that eye contact, I see you there, and smile back.
I turn away and I say farewell now.
She didn’t even smile when Vander left the gallery. That’s another eyeopener that things are fucked up, and have been fucked up for some time, that she can’t smile for Vander. She can still smile for Evilie, but, as she continues to walk, and nod, and loose the reins to a body that can entertain through the same automatic pathway as a heart or a stomach, something else begins to strike her now, too.
I don’t talk like I love her anymore.
When is the last time her wife has been able to feel wholly adored without it being an ephemeral thing? Perhaps two turns now. And there’s something truly dismal about that, even as she struggles simultaneously to hold onto that recognition enough to just make it finally feel real.
Guilt is sitting at that corner, and I can’t be fucked to say hello.
Frankly, did she even need to? It’s a thought that feels so indulgent, so confident; it’s the same sort of gratification of an ancient itch as that Dragoon she had spoken to. And maybe it’s that - that audacity to privately roll the selfishness of that feeling through her fingers over and over again, that makes her guilt stand up, and speak up. So exasperated with her, her lack of self-control.
Can you wager how many times she cries without you?
At first, it still feels unreal - like something separated and alone from her mind. Long enough for her to tune back in, finish the tour, sign off a donation, ‘listen’ to the personal gratitudes of some of the researchers, and eventually end up atop the back of a damnedable chocobo for her ride back to Ishgard’s walls. Then it circles right back,
She cries when you aren’t there.
Then… then she’s back at home, at some point in this ocean of lost time. They’re both in the bedchamber, sitting at the table for supper. Though Xiaohu, at this point, has pushed her plate away along with her chair as well. Her body sinks back into the large, large, seat, one leg over the other and arms hugged tight across herself. Not an unusual pose for when they’d chatter slowly after the sun’s affairs, but changed some. For once, not hiding away the thoughtfulness plaguing her: no retreat to the study or waiting for her lover’s sleeping breaths; that weigh of her eyebrows and narrowed focus to her eyes, and the backs of two curled fingers pressed up to the grooves of her parted lips
When did I get so cold?
It is unusual enough that the taller woman, attuned as she is, seems to find it difficult to determine what sort of spirit lays there. Glancingly, under her own brow while she cuts into her meal, comes out that voice that plays so softly, so delicately, compared to the husk of smoke that airs her own, “...what is on your mind, my love?” speaks; wrapped up in a language learned almost entirely for Xiaohu.
Was it the marriage, or was it those catacombs, where I lost that warmth of mine?
She’s done such a shoddy job telling Evilie how she feels, the feelings so ever-present as they are, themselves, ephemeral as of late. It swells up there in her breast, so very real in that initial flush, with the smile broken so easily across that face. Patient and self-deprecative, her partner has never held an onze of shame leaning into the most done-to-death things, especially when she was attempting to redirect her mind, “Did I get something on my face?”
“I almost fucking died because of them!” I was so angry, I was so disappointed in those moons. It wasn’t the only thing, they weren’t the only people.
The smile comes easy (in spite of everything), though as she expected - her feeling starts to drip through her fingers like an hourglasses’ sands, “Do you think I would tell you even if you did?”
Or maybe it was the Crozier, itself, Kami, I was so disappointed. “...it’s crushing me… I can’t say no to Vander or Kowa.” And, fuck, did it hurt so much when… I shouldn’t. Not that part. Not now.
“No, no I suppose you have a point there. You’d get a kick out of Laroue’s face, letting me walk out like that.”
—it all started to hurt then. For all of that. It was that; it was that. I was so, so, fucking disappointed. I felt so powerless, so trapped. I was so exhausted from caring so ceaselessly. I had to care for everyone. I had to. Someone got hurt no matter what I did, because I couldn’t stop my own friends, my own family. It felt like no one was listening. I was drowning. Evilie had to watch me drown and drown until one sun my head didn’t come back up. I didn’t want her to see that. I was hurt so badly, so many times, because of them. And I cared for them so much still through all. For turns. I hid the blame for them, I was always doing that. I pulled strings I didn’t want to pull, I hurt people I would have never hurt. I let people go that shouldn’t have. I felt like I was amongst monsters, and I still cared so much. I fought with Evilie too, for them. Even there, I took the blame away. I did this until Esen told me to stop playing God and I—
“He looks like he has glaucoma whenever there’s something out of place, I absolutely would.”
—I gave myself permission to stop caring about anyone.
“...one moment, my dear,”
(I used to call her so many things much more often; my darling Evilie)
Another lurch in which time seems to bring her forward, in a blink, to another moment. To the jewelry box.
I got cold from that.
It’s not hard to find at all - plainly visible. Always visible. It stands out like she has always stood out; like the things and the people who have stood out to her.
I’ve been so fucking cold.
Is it the aether pulling at some sense beyond her own, thrumming in that necklace? Or is it the memory, memories, so infused within?
And I keep taking it out on Evilie, I told myself I could take a break and stop caring about her too.
She tests every heartbeat; something she hadn’t done in so long. All three, mind, claw, and heart - throbbing with the steadiness of their lives, across the distances both forged and walked from one another.
It’s easier to give myself that, and I really want to, most suns.
For a moment, she stops - frozen by the unadulterated feeling of a thought only half-experienced earlier. And her breath catches, sympathetic pain rushing across the network within her lungs,
SHE CRIES WHEN YOU AREN’T THERE.
Suddenly, it’s hard not to cry when she hasn’t cried in, generously, at least a turn. Her insides want to crumple in on one another, like the compression of a mass of unwanted papers, inward, and inward. The wetness blurring her vision is so minute, and yet it feels like a wellspring after so long. she cries when you aren’t there. But she needs to breathe, and she needs to do this. So she breathes. And then, she centers, with her thumb pressed to the animal’s tiny breast while she walks back. She pushes that aside; she focuses on the joy that Evilie, herself, manages to summon so often.
How could I love her so much when I have these bells and suns where my thoughts feel so cruel, so debasing, of us? How could I have been able to bear ignoring her for so long?
There’s always been an enjoyment she’s had with this before, to observe in this way. No matter how she felt about their marriage, there was a doubt in the back of her head that it would ever lose its novelty.
Why have I grown so much more patient myself, so much more equal with her, and yet I’ve still found a way to continue to be such a wretched person?
The flutter thrum of her lover’s heart is like clockwork, whether it is when they, themselves, are flush or Xiaohu experiences this way. When Evilie knows that her wife’s attention is upon her, that the infinite world of her enigmatic lover has begun to narrow, and narrow, and so willingly mold itself to her; when she notices, and that weakness is in her heart.
Maybe I need to take a break from not caring anymore, too.
Maybe it will come in piecemeal, in the maddened back-and-forth of her soul, or in a fell swoop, or maybe it truly doesn’t come at all. However it would ultimately go, there is something in her core, her arms, that resolves with an aplomb that has been so scarce as of late. Her body moves fluidly, and somewhat distantly (Is this one of Felore’s recordings?) to a thrum of its own; separate from the chilled nothingness it had been subject to. Pacing, and mirroring, gradually to the thrum felt within her palm. She moves within an old element of her own (cast in a new light now), drawing up to sit atop the table where Evilie has already cleared her space. She feels her legs tap to a stop against thighs while she rotates to look upon her wife directly. And then her palms slide in a warm spread of her hands across both sides of the Elezen’s face; her eyes scrutinous in such a missed way while thumbs, so softly, brush over cheeks and cheekbone.
“I see you so much right now, my love.”
(My Darling Evilie.)
0 notes
Photo
Commission done for my good buddy @daedrasilk
Modern outfits and Dnd characters is so much fun omgg, and these babs are adorable together <33
#commission#art#illustration#dnd#Dungeons and Dragons#dnd oc#polyship#jaaster#cheng#oddity#modern au#commission art#gaylart
44 notes
·
View notes
Text
Junelezen, Day 1 - Portrait
I've been really busy to kick the month off, but I'm finally able to start playing catch-up with this photo challenge! Gonna start off with the good boy, then run through these with Vander, too.
15 notes
·
View notes
Note
🌺
Jaaster:
"I think I was perhaps too quick to judge him as yet another martial-minded brute that thought stubbornness and will was enough to power through any injury--ah, that is so say, I don't think he is now. That counts as a likable trait, does it not?"
His fingers tap idly at his arm.
"He seems... earnest, perhaps? 'Tis hard to tell, with how he stiffens like a board every time I'm about. Or in general. He's quite awkward, but that can be wholesome at times. Yet, he is quite capable. You wouldn't know it from talking with him, but he's quite talented in a fight. I don't think I've been witness to one he's lost as of yet, in fact."
He pauses, adding: “He smells of dog. Take that as you want.”
// @atomicdeke
5 notes
·
View notes
Note
🌺
“Jaaster is easygoing. Doesn’t seem to hold grudges. Heseems… strangely normal, compared to some of the others at the Enclave. I getthe sense that he just wants to help.” He takes a sip of his drink and adds on witha bit of a grumble, “He could stand to take better care of himself.”
---
When it comes to Vander, there’s a long stretch of silencewhere no answer is forthcoming. He takes a long sip of his drink, as though tryingto stall his reply further. Eventually he sighs, “At least he is… predictablyantagonistic. I suppose that is better than having to guess every time he comesinto the room if he is going to be… like that… or not.” His brow furrows, hefrowns deeply, and lets out another sigh. “We did have one decent talk, Isuppose. I’m not sure I trust it.”
3 notes
·
View notes
Note
🌺
[Jaaster]
"Couldn't even look me in the eye... How is it that he became a Director?..." As per usual, her staccato monotone is absent any of the curiosity or concern that might soften this statement. But the priestess splays her fingers over the seemingly judgmental line of her mouth and continues, "...No, I shouldn't question it. The Lady Advocate knows her own people than I would on paper. It's a good position - he'll learn a lot from it."
A long silence. Finally: "...I liked his hound. Rollo. He was very - well behaved. I was afraid of my mother's - there's a wildness that never really goes away, you know... - but I can see how the respect for his weapons would extend to the people under him. Jaaster keeps him well fed. He had a good - smile."
This is said with enough awkward reluctance that you're unsure if she's speaking of Jaaster or his hound.
[Vander]
"...Hmm." Vander is not known for titheing, and his attitudes towards the dead don’t entirely seem to align with the Order’s, at surface level. But of all the things one could possibly think a priestess of the Traders would be offended by, Lux merely mutters, "...He assumed the ashkin was a friend, first."
She doesn’t elaborate, at first, instead averts her gaze and continues, "If you ignore his tendencies to bring out the worst in men of the cloth, he'd be a valuable asset to the Order. Aetherially gifted, especially now that I know he’s not just spinning stories about spirits for a lark. He'd laugh, but I think he /was/ called to the Ossuary, in a way... He’s valuable."
[But this is a question about what you /like./]
"...I've only ever seen him approach strangers with kindness and respect, regardless of the circumstances or the potential dangers. It's not just a willingness to entertain, either - it's a desire to hear someone's voice, no matter how quiet or uncertain. And that respect of his isn't merely extended to the living - either. That’s a quality that’s rarer still when one's natural inclination towards the dead is to draw back in fear. That's so --" Not Ul'dahn. Not Gridanian, either.
"I liked talking to him, alone. He had my back in front of the others in the Order - was willing to entirely provoke a kind of dangerous attention onto himself to prevent any questions about my association. He had no reason to think that I was any different - that I wouldn’t just trump up charges of necromancy and report his place of business to the Ul’dahn consulate - ...but he gave me a chance. Let me choose the subject of our first potential collaboration. Showed up without questions and without so much as flashing the edge of a knife to me. So... I do extend my trust to him - his character."
She's thinking of red, now, though - the memory of dim light eclipsing the color of his eyes, the feeling of her aether drawing across his to reveal some subtle flaw. And just like that, she's back in the realm of careful professionalism, "But I'm not - ...negotiating with just him alone, and I don't know the terms of the agreements he's already forged or had forced on him."
#atomicdeke#vander thuun#jaaster taras#this got long#they're all gonna be long...#THANK U FOR THE ASK FRIEND!!!
12 notes
·
View notes
Note
💭💭
Vander
I’m pretty sure I’m growing on him. Sometimes I think he thinks I’m actually funny, I can kind of see it his expression changes by a fraction of an ilm that almost makes it looks like he’s smiling. We’re winning him over little by little.
-bonus-
Haunted haunted haunted haunted HAUNTED-- SERIOUSLY DOES THIS BOTHER NO ONE BUT ME AND RASHK?!?!
Jaaster
Didn’t really get a chance to get a good impression, I’m not really one of those ‘friendships through battle’. Do you know how hard it is to try and get a feel for someone when you’re also trying not to let them smash your face in?? Unless we’re talking literal feels, too bad I didn’t get a chance to cop one of those during the fights.
3 notes
·
View notes
Note
🌺
“Jaaster– well, I’ve barely had the chance to speak to him. He has dogs, as far as I know, and he’s a good fighter. I recognize the style of battle he uses, and I can respect it, but there’s… little I can say out of that. He seems soft-spoken, a bit? I would just need to interact with him more to get much of a read.”
“Vander. Mmh.” Elise paused, raising an eyebrow. “None so controversial as this man who waltzes into the Enclave. It would take a specific, acquired taste to deal with him.” Elise paused. “What do you mean I’m dodging the question?” Elise sighed. “My friends do not like him. I don’t have the greatest opinion of him. It’s as if boundaries do not exist to him, sometimes. And while that is infuriating, it marks the fact that I should use my energies elsewhere.”
“I suppose he is a good wrestler, though. He can captivate attention, when need be. There are good qualities among all, even people I dislike.”
5 notes
·
View notes
Note
💭💭
Vander
"Quick to resort to posturing, isn't he. Known plenty men like him—like to establish the pecking order early, think they've already earned the right to be captain. Intimidation tactics don't inspire loyalty, it makes for a crew waiting to initiate mutiny ...
But I'm sure it's very attractive to anyone who wants to get nailed under him."
Jaaster
"... Glistens pretty when he gets all sweaty in that low cut shirt of his ..."
5 notes
·
View notes
Note
🌸… a curious fact.; 🌻... a suggestion.
Send a flower to Hear…
🌸
Adi rubs the back of his neck. “A curious fact about me? Um... I like singing. Hymns are kind of a thing for my family. Everyone can sing, it’s kind of natural if you start when you’re young. But um, I also like to scream. Like they do on those orchestrion tracks. I practice it in the woods. Just go out somewhere deserted and scream my head off.”
Etienne taps their cheek with one fingertip. “I didn’t start writing poems, I started writing dossiers and lists. I also kept journals when I was traveling for work. I became interested in poetic form from reading books of romantic poetry -- but my work isn’t generally very romantic. I think the last love poem I actually completed I called myself an icy, selfish bitch. I should have probably thought a little harder about why I said that.” A small laugh. “But I love... I love how it reflects on the nature of the soul when folks write of love. It’s still my favorite sort of poem to read.”
🌻
Adi rolls his shoulders. “A suggestion for Jaaster? Um. We should go to a metal concert together. We could just go and enjoy the music. Wouldn’t have to talk much.” He nods faintly at that, satisfied with the answer.
“As for Vander... sober up. Both you should sober up.”
Etienne, sitting nearby, rolls their eyes. “Do I get to give you a suggestion?”
“Do you ever do anything but give me unsolicited advice?”
“Fair point. Right, my turn. Jaaster... hm. It doesn’t seem fair to just tell someone to relax and have confidence. I know it doesn’t come easily for everyone. So um... when you are nervous, just breathe. In through your nose, out through your mouth, and just take things one step at a time. You’ll be alright.”
Etienne fidgets a little. “And a suggestion for Vander? Can I just say ‘you should definitely wear that butler outfit’?” They laugh quietly. “Ah, well... I suppose, don’t be afraid to tell me things. I’d rather know than not know. Trust me to know what I can handle.”
(( Thanks for the ask, @atomicdeke!))
4 notes
·
View notes
Text
Prompt Seventeen: "Destruct"
When you destroy something, you have to cut off something else.
It’s cheesy, but it’s true.
I don’t mean that in the way that the tropes spell it - your grandfathers and your wisewomen who don’t want you to have that certain power. I don’t mean it like you’ll lose yourself to it, like you’ll just go on with your little life and die in a little scraped-up ball of impotent rage in a razed field— I don’t mean it like those insipid little metaphors.
I mean it like it takes some fuel.
It takes a pinch of effort to break someone’s orbital to fucking bits, squeeze that tiny brace of bone in their necks so that they swell and pop. It takes a bullet to load that fucking gun, like how, sometimes, it just takes a little part of you to fuck someone’s night up.
I could have just drank.
I could have just lied.
I could have smiled, too, a less bloody one, when you think about the things I could have done in that moment.
But I didn’t fucking want to.
When you’re passive, you should only be so because you made the calculation that it just didn’t fucking matter.
That you had better things to cut yourself up over.
Not because it’s polite. Not because you want everyone to forget about this moment and move on, this moment that gets you in that forgeheart of your temper - right there, right hemisphere of your fucking chest, concentrated in that last rib you could just rip out of yourself. I don’t fuck with that sort of shit— not when you get on me like that with your stupid smiles.
Frankly?
I don’t want this to be an ephemeral moment for everyone but me.
I never want you to fucking forget.
And that’s easy to fucking do.
All it takes is a little part of me.
It doesn’t hurt, it’s nothing more than a clipping of my nail, a peel of skin already dead, white, and vacant.
But I’ll make it fucking hurt for you.
I’ll make you feel bad.
I’ll make you pause for at least one fucking bell of your life and wonder all of the morbid shit that everyone wonders and no one says: How bad was it? Was it just your feet? Was it in your legs, your knees, your hips? Did it shock up your body the way that you can snap a tree in two with that right hit along the grain? Were you a kid? Did you do anything else? Was it dirty? How many times? Who did this?
I’ll smear myself on you like a haunting.
I’ll stain you so you throw yourself away.
#xiaohu#writing#FfxivWrite2021#tags of those present for this rp:#evilie#esen#jaaster#valka#lux#rashk#remeraux
15 notes
·
View notes
Text
Junelezen, Day 5 - Fancy Clothes
17 notes
·
View notes
Note
💭 💭 (one for Jaaster, one for Vander, or two for one, your call!)
Thanks for the ask @atomicdeke!
Jaaster - “I wonder what other animal Jaaster would take as a pet?”
Vander - “Vander is going to be so surprised when we wrestle and I throw my top off to equal the playing field.”
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
Prompt #1: Crux
(Once again unedited. Once again may be a mess.)
“So what are you going to do about it?”
--
It’s quiet in the apartment. The dogs are asleep, the sound of each of their breaths floating over from where they’re curled up in the corner. The cat pressed into his side snores lightly as Ambaghai sits on the edge of his bed, eyes unfocused and cast toward the ground.
He’s been quiet, too. More than usual. He knows this. He can’t bring himself to speak the thoughts that have been so often on his mind of late.
Just go home, Khai.
Some of the few he’d managed to speak in the last week. Hurtful, more likely than not. However he meant it, whatever he’d intended, he was sure Khai hadn’t heard it as a plea. He’d be better off there. Without him.
He’d always known that, he’d lived with a sliver of guilt in knowing that he was the only reason Khai was even left home for years. Chosen to ignore it because it was Khai’s choice. But that guilt expanded and increased and gnawed at the edges of his psyche when he’d realized that it wasn’t just Khai.
So few of the people in his life had truly benefited from knowing him.
Khai, here in Eorzea, constantly worrying about him.
His mother back home, who had always worried about him, and not in the typical ways of a parent worrying for their child. But for the way he was. And now…
And now he’s sure she worries more than ever before.
Sechen, short a brother.
Temulun, short a son.
Sokhatai, short a son. Short a student that he’d spent a decade and a half training.
Dayir…
He pulls his mind away from that one.
So what are you going to do about it?
He’d left the steppe because he thought they’d be better off without him. The burden he’d placed on their lives because they worried for him.
But he hadn’t been able to escape it.
Khai had come with him, and…
Jaaster. Two head injuries. Molten metal on his hand. Shock. From trying to help him.
Esen. A cracked rib. Burns on her arms. Because he had tried to help.
Those who knew him suffered for it.
Even those who didn’t…
Ayla. He hadn’t hurt her, had he? A pang of guilt as he remembers casting spells, fire, no consideration for her fears.
And even if he hadn’t hurt her, he hasn’t helped, either. She hasn’t benefited.
And Khai…
He can’t help hating himself at the realization that his presence seems to come out to a net negative for the people around him. A realization that brings him to the same conclusion he had come to years ago, before he’d left home.
That they’d be better off without him.
So what are you going to do about it?
The question that has hounded him every day. And every day, the answer was the same. Just the same as it had been back then.
“I’ll leave.”
He’s all but ready to leave. Already packed the items he intends to bring wherever it is he’s going.
As he rises to his feet he feels something move beneath his shirt, and what would normally bring comfort now brings nothing the but the overwhelming guilt of his greatest failure. The thought he’d torn himself from now returns in full force.
Dayir. Dead. Suffering in pain for longer than he’d had to because Ambaghai had refused to just let him go.
He had tried an all it had caused was more pain.
He reaches a hand beneath his shirt, pulls out the pendant from beneath it and stares at it a moment – he can’t help but hate himself. He doesn’t deserve it. Doesn’t deserve to hold on to that life when doing so is what had caused such suffering.
He drops the pendant onto his bed, stares at it a moment more before tearing his eyes away.
“I’ll leave.”
18 notes
·
View notes
Note
💭
Lux, about Vander: No concrete and verbalized thought - only the poring over every single conversation she’s had with him in her mind to calculate the probability that Vander has the kind of money to outright afford the outfit she’d seen him wear last. Where would the money come from? What would he do with it?
...Likely nothing he should tell her about, unfortunately.
Lux, about Jaaster: “Oh. I was reminded the other day that some nobles in Ul’dah choose to leave parts of their estate to their pets... I should forward him a brochure. He should be aware of his options.”
#asks answered#lux is just that woman doing algebra meme except it's vander and money#vander thuun#jaaster taras#atomicdeke
7 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
st4r-ch1ldxx
Star~!
ravio-x-link-blog
Dorks-Between-Worlds
lessthan000
I got two red pills to take the blues away
translesbianvampire
herspanic legend 🔞